<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>tragic affair by bareunloveliness</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836363">tragic affair</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bareunloveliness/pseuds/bareunloveliness'>bareunloveliness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Barriere du Maine, Blood, Bullets, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Enjolras Was A Charming Young Man Who Was Capable Of Being Terrible, Gen, Guns, Implied Murder, Modern language, My Chemical Romance References, Richefeu's, Second Person, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, canon character death, depictions of violence, kind of, no beta we die like men, triggers to be updated as work is updated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:40:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bareunloveliness/pseuds/bareunloveliness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Although there were young men all around the Rue St. Denis, the street is silent. The final bullet whistled when the National Guard evacuated the building, leaving the fearless leader pinned to the wall and the cynic at his feet. There is something otherworldly about the layer of dust that had settled, and the scene made its home between reality and heaven—if you could call it that.<br/>Had hours passed? Had days? How long did it take to die?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bahorel/Feuilly (Les Misérables), Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Cosette Fauchelevent/Éponine Thénardier, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta, Marius Pontmercy/Éponine Thénardier, kind of - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. THE END</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This entire concept was created by my friend Brooke, who set My Chemical Romance songs in order for a Barricade Boys musical when they were drunk. I devote this entire piece to her, though I did shift and change stuff around from her original plan. Imagining it on stage might be one way to read it, but just allow the world of the story to shift around you. Tenses will also vary and change.<br/>at this point i cannot tell if there will be comfort or not? bc im writing like. an epilogue. but they still all die at the end so. we'll see.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Come one, come all to this tragic affair</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Although there were young men all around the Rue St. Denis, the street is silent. The final bullet whistled when the National Guard evacuated the building, leaving the fearless leader pinned to the wall and the cynic at his feet. There is something otherworldly about the layer of dust that had settled, and the scene made its home between reality and heaven—if you could call it that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had hours passed? Had days? How long did it take to die?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wipe off that makeup, what's in is despair</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire opens his eyes, collapsed at Enjolras' boots. He reaches up to his forehead, and pulls the single bullet out, a train of blood dripping down his face. It doesn't feel like blood. It feels cold. He looks up at Enjolras, eight bullets in his chest. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ah</span>
  </em>
  <span>. That's why he feels cold. He remembers the moments before- not knowing how long it had been since he stumbled towards the window next to Enjolras.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>So throw on that black dress, mix in with the lot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire doesn't know you were there; are you watching or reading? You are neither here nor there nor dead nor alive—a space where the air doesn’t work the same way we're used to. There is no air for Grantaire to breathe—because he’s dead. Is this the past, the present, or the cyclic future?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire almost laughs, knowing that there's no point in crying. "I </span>
  <em>
    <span>said</span>
  </em>
  <span> I wouldn't go to your fucking funeral." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You might wake up and notice you're someone you're not.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He rises to his feet, equal height to Enjolras. He doesn't focus on the symbolism of dying at his feet, which was all he ever really wanted in the least masochistic way possible (or most, but that's up to you, he supposed). How did he get to this place? Sure, he remembers eating breakfast with Joly and Bossuet, but how did he get so attached to the man before him?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even in death, Enjolras is beautiful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His high forehead is covered by damp curls, blood soaked, although Grantaire figures it wasn't his blood. His lips are full and parted slightly, almost peaceful, long lashes resting over closed eyes. Grantaire could devour him right there, paint him and hang him in the Louvre. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>you can find out first hand what it's like to be me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire almost feels unworthy in his presence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he turns to you, in the way that only a dead man can. In the pages of a book or in the audience of a theatre, he turns to you.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>So gather round, piggies, and kiss this goodbye</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He does, kissing Enjolras’s hand as Enjolras had kissed Gavroche and Mabeuf's. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'd encourage your smiles, I'll expect you won't cry.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks back to you briefly, before jumping out the window of the Corinth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rather, he smirks at you before backflipping out, Enjolras still visible in the window from the ground below. How fitting—Enjolras died above the barricade, arms spread like someone's son on a cross. The scene plays in reverse as Grantaire lands, the other bodies standing up, dusting themselves off and hugging each other, ignoring the bayonet stabs and balls still embedded in their skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire is overwhelmed, even in a state of purgatory and in between life and death, he is honored to be alongside his friends. Courfeyrac makes a break for inside the Corinth, and brings Gavroche back out, Mabeuf alongside him with a blissful smile, proud of the students.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Combeferre and Joly inspect each other's wounds, trying to make sense of the world they have woken up in. It's not the world they fought for, but Grantaire isn't surprised that their first move is to rationalize the situation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Feuilly and Bahorel embrace, not caring if they're dead or alive— they're together. Bossuet finds one of the bottles they had hidden away (in case that Grantaire woke up early, though he had calculated his mixture of absinthe and stout to avoid such a situation) and begins drinking, smiling wide at his friends. They know Enjolras is missing—they must.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire looks back at you- you've followed him back to the barricade. Did you jump too?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Another contusion, my funeral jag.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Here's my resignation, I'll serve it in drag.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You've got front row seats to the penitence ball, </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>When I grow up I want to be -</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Grantaire never wanted to grow up, never thought he'd get this far, but there's an unspoken sadness amongst his friends, who thought they might be more than this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>nothing at all!</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's the only one who knew this would happen, and he hates himself for it, but these days, he hasn't himself for a lot of things. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Is there music playing? Is it angry? Is it real?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Come on," Grantaire pulls the bottle from Bossuet's hands. "Do you guys know where the fuck we are?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Rue du Saint Denis," Bossuet says glumly, earning a playful strike on the back of his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, because I wouldn't be caught dead at Enjolras's fucking barricade since he didn’t ask me to be here," Grantaire smiles toothily, playing on his own words as he often does. "Nobody saved you. I told you they wouldn't—the people will rise my ass. We were too young—no, I was meant to die. You all did this to yourselves and I can never forgive you for that. You didn't fucking listen to me."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Grantaire-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, Joly, figure it out yourself. We're d-"</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. DEAD!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This is a memory. He isn't in the Cafe Musain. He is dead.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Enjolras doesn't backflip, no, he falls back, stumbling, and hanging for a moment out of the window with a red flag in his hand. How did he still manage to look like a statue? He is suspended for a moment, as his friends stare with baited breath, before he falls and lands on his feat.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They're no longer in the street, but back in the ABC cafe. You’re still there, but time is bending around you. Time was bending around you. Time will bend around you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men’s clothes were clean, but the wounds remained. Only you and Grantaire could see them- he’d always been the only one. It had been like this for months, him imagining the grotesque ways that Jehan would get his head sliced off or Bossuet would be gutted with a bayonet. He couldn’t sleep at night. He knew what would happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he knew it fucking shouldn't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at Enjolras. The toad and the bird.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And if your heart stops beating,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I'll be here wondering,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did you get what you deserve?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Surely not, because a man like Enjolras deserved the world. He deserved victory and revolution and Louis-Phillipe's head on a stick. Instead, he would get Grantaire's dead body at his feet. Grantaire swallowed back guilt and wine- he believed in nothing but the undeniable truth that was he not good enough to disgrace the barricade with his presence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"So when this happens," Grantaire said, rising to his feet unsteadily, a horrible choice he often made. "When Lamarque dies and it leads to the rest of us biting the dust, what happens then?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The people will-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Will you go to heaven, Enjolras?"</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>And if you get to heaven,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"What?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I'll be here waiting, babe.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"You heard me, babe. I'll be there- God will take one look at me and know that I'm a companion he wants to keep around. But what the fuck do you deserve?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I deserve nothing, I don't-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do something for yourself once in your pathetic fucking life, Enjolras. Or you're going to die, the stupid flag in your perfect hands, and I'll be wondering </span>
  <em>
    <span>did you get what you deserve?</span>
  </em>
  <span> But I know you didn't. Because you deserve everything. And I detest you for that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the fuck was he saying? He looked at you for an answer, but you didn't have one.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The end and if your life won't wait, then</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"My </span>
  <em>
    <span>heart can't take this</span>
  </em>
  <span>," Grantaire stood on a chair, towering over Enjolras, the eyes of his friends worried about him falling while he was worried about his life. Or rather, his death. "We're going to fucking die. And I'm going to be there with you. You know I am. You don't know why, but you know I am."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Have you heard the news that we're dead?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No one ever had much nice to say,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I think they never liked us anyway.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"The people fucking hate us, they think you're a prick and they think I'm an alcoholic. The people are right." He was drunk- there's no poetic way to call him the God of wine and orgies or to say that his cheeks turned the color of his merlot-—it was the stench of alcohol on his breath that made him intolerable.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, take me from Patria's bed</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If Grantaire could have left France behind, he would have. But that would have meant leaving Enjolras behind, and his heart would have sooner broken in two pieces on the Musain floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wouldn't it be grand to take a pistol by the hand?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"We're going to fucking die. I don't know how else to tell you that, Apollo. Might as well save the National Guard the trouble and launch our own bullets into our thick skulls." He drank, not knowing what else to do. Was he even speaking out loud? Did anyone hear him but you?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Grantaire, you are a good for nothing fool. Shut up." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire heard every word Enjolras said. It was nice to know that Enjolras did the same for Grantaire.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And wouldn't it be great if I were dead?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a tempting thought— to be dead. It wasn’t as if Grantaire hadn't tried it before. Repeatedly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You'd miss me," he hissed in response, stumbling towards Enjolras. Nothing changed, nothing was new, and nothing was all Grantaire seemed to believe in. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, dead?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras continued his rallying cry. Grantaire almost cried.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tongue-tied, no, oh-so-squeamish.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You never fell in love</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras had fallen in love, certainly- his mistress, his mother, his Patria. He considered himself lucky to have such a divine reason to live; that is to say, he pitied Grantaire, who had nothing. Grantaire did not love another person or a country or an idea or a thought. Maybe wine, but that's only when it taught him how to die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras was wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did you get what you deserve? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The ending of your life</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Apollo!' Grantaire shouted. "I wasn't done speaking. Don't you support uplifting the voices of all your fellow men or some shit?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I am so sick of hearing your voice." Enjolras rolled his eyes, not bothering to give Grantaire the reaction he so desperately wanted. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And if you get to heaven</span>
  </em>
  <span>,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fine, then answer my question."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A world where the Republic wins and my </span>
  <em>
    <span>fellow men</span>
  </em>
  <span> are equal, yes. I believe we will reach that point. And if I'm not around to see it, that's still my heaven."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sick. Will I go to heaven?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I'll be here waiting, babe.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Should you like to, I believe you could. But I don't think you want to and I don't think you believe it, so this conversation is moot."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did you get what you deserve?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you think I deserve it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think you're hammered."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The end, and if your life won't wait,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Then your heart can't take this</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire stood on a table now,  probably climbing up less than gracefully, and shouted at the statue below him. How fascinating it was to be above him for once in his sad fucking life. "I know I am, and I also know that you're going to die! Why won't any of you listen to me? Robespierre was an asshole, Rosseau was a dick, and Enjolras, you're a fucking terror! You think you're one of those men? You are! And you shouldn't be. Because they're fucking dead and the world still sucks shit."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Read as: "I can't bear to think of you as dead."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Have you heard the news that you're dead?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Les Amis were used to hearing Grantaire's intoxicated rants, but this one stung more than spewing bullshit about Cleopatra or Pygmalion. It wasn't about people who formerly lived, but the people who sat in that room. Bossuet and Joly almost pulled Grantaire back down off the table, but considered allowing him to speak instead—it certainly was good entertainment and they couldn't afford the opera.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No one ever had much nice to say,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I think you never liked me anyway</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Grantaire," Enjolras started, with that firm but horrifying stoicism that only the Greeks truly understood, "You are the most repulsive, ignorant drunkard I have ever had the misfortune of knowing. Get the fuck down."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, take me to the leader's bed</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fuck you, Apollo."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wouldn't it be grand to take a pistol by the hand?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The hatred for himself doubled what he felt for Enjolras in that moment, and it came like a wave crashing onto the shore. Joly and Bossuet helped him down, afraid he would have hurt himself. He would have welcomed a fall.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And wouldn't it be great if I was dead?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished he never went to the stupid meetings, he wished he never met Enjolras, and he wished he never woke up again. It's alarming how fast the uproar and cheers of the drunkard could switch to unadulterated loathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, dead.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He paused. He should have quit then, while he was ahead. Stumbled into his rooms next door, and called it a night while he still might remember the words he spit.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And in my honest observation, during this operation</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Found a complication, in your heart so long</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire stared at the blond, desperately trying to read him, to see what wheels were turning behind his high forehead. Was there a possibility of love for another man? Was Enjolras the one incapable of believing in Grantaire, of willing to stay alive, of thinking that his life matter, of living for another day, or of dying by the side of someone who loved him? </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Cause now you've got maybe just two weeks to leave.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire couldn't see if he was truly the only one who realized that if they put up a barricade when Lamarque dies, they will join his fate. Enjolras was a clever man—surely he knew. Surely he knew he was leading his friends to their tragic ends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wondered if he should retreat now, or if there was a second wind stirring inside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is that the most the both of you can give?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They gave each other wit and spite, and there may have been nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Grantaire should have gone home.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>One, two,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He should survive. He should make it out alive. He shouldn't die for a revolution he doesn't believe in. Enjolras licked the sweat off of his upper lip.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>One two three four!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who decided that you get to put our lives on the line?" Grantaire barked, a monstrous laugh crawling from the back of his throat. "You seduce us to the cause, to this room, and then tell us that when Lamarque dies, we're all going to go with him. Do you understand what you're asking us to do?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>La, la, la</span>
  </em>
  <span>- </span>
  <em>
    <span>well, come on!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't pretend not to know the dangers of what we risk, you inebriate." Enjolras scorned him, as he always did. Grantaire's pride swelled at the acknowledgement—wasn’t that fucked? "Every man in this room knows what may happen when we speak out, but we know that we have to."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you know that you can fucking die, Enjolras? We can talk of heaven and hell, but you are so much on your own pedestal—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"—because you have put me there—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"—that you don't recognize your own humanity. I may have given birth to the nickname of Apollo, but you accept it and you love it. You preach equality and republicanism but there is some twisted part of you that adores to see me grovel, and that's okay, I don't do it so you despise me, if that's the only attention I can earn."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His words made less and less sense as he spoke, but he could not stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"'Aire," Joly said, rising carefully with his cane by his side. "Perhaps we should make our way home."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>La, la, la - oh, motherfucker!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"This bastard is my home, Joly. Wherever he is will be my home." Grantaire mumbled, not yet retreating. "Can we take a fucking moment to celebrate the fact that we haven't died yet? Or is the promise of drink and joy too much for our beloved leader to handle?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"As if I've ever stopped you from drinking," Enjolras grimaced—although he has admittedly tried, but pulling an addict from their vice does not bode well for anyone who wishes to remain uninjured. "We have no reason to celebrate yet while our fellow men—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fellow men? Great fucking Apollo, you have not worked a day alongside them. They are in chains and you are in divine light. We are Les Amis d'ABC- the friends of the oppressed, but we are not the fucking oppressed. Feuilly, Bossuet, and I are the only people in this room who have gone a day without knowing if we will eat by the week's end."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pointing out Enjolras' comfortable past was one of the lowest moves that Grantaire had, and he didn't do it often. It was a cheap shot, and Grantaire found more pleasure in winning impossible matches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras did not say anything, but sat down. A concession. He put his head down.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>La, la, la- if life ain't just a joke</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire had won. He usually passed out before that happened. The wolfish side of the man was thrilled at his victory, but the unfortunate lover inside him felt a horrid sense of guilt and pity. His fellow men celebrated on his behalf, if only to clear the tension in the air that wrapped itself like rope around Enjolras and Grantaire. The room erupted into life again, hands clapped on Grantaire's back as he drank.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>La, la, la - then why are we laughing?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Could he laugh at Enjolras' pain?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One more drink and he could.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If life ain't just a joke, then why are we laughing?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Alcohol ran its course down his throat and through his veins. A sick smile played on his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If life ain't just a joke, then why are we laughing</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His friends started to clear out—les amis of his abiasse, if you will. Enjolras had not lifted his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If life ain't just a joke, then why are we laughing</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a kind of tender justice to have the underdog win, though he hated himself for it and would likely skip a few meetings in a blackout haze for the next few days while he recovered from the victorious loss.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If life ain't just a joke,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But reality set back in. He could not be without Enjolras for that long. He could not be without him ever. And no matter how many fights they had, no matter how many Grantaire won, no matter how many he lost—it all ended the same way.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Then why am I dead</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling above when he and Enjolras were the only two in the room left, both in their own worlds of thought, a million miles and a few feet apart. He remembered how this would end, already caught in the same between what would happen and what already did. He could feel the single bullet wound in his head. He got hit with one blow—and he could see, in the back of his mind, eight gashes in Enjolras' chest. Eight shots that Enjolras couldn't feel. Grantaire felt them like he himself had nine rifles aimed at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is a memory. He isn't in the Cafe Musain. He is dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Dead.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>like with 'the most dangerous thing', i have the whole fic written except for the end, but i'm in the process of editing it! i will say that i think that while the tags on this are a lot heavier, it's not as sad? because. we already know everything that's going to happen? this was an exercise in playing with time and space in writing which is really fun especially since i'm a theatre director irl and time and space are fun to play with irl in that setting.<br/>anyway next chapter is ghost of you.<br/>remember that comments clear my skin and water my crops :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. GHOST OF YOU</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Marius isn’t surrounded by ghosts, he isn’t surrounded by memories, he is painfully and utterly alone. </p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>no new trigger warnings, but bc it's been a bit since the last update, i recommend reviewing the old ones!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There is someone in the Cafe Musain. He walks on a crutch, one that once belonged to Joly. But the man isn’t Joly. Joly’s dead. They are all dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I never said I'd lie and wait forever,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If I died, we'd be together.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A shadow of a man, darkness personified, a figure in the night—it’s Marius. He racks his brain to try to remember who saved him, but all he can see is his friends dying, one by one. The way Combeferre looked to the sky, the way that Jehan looked so scared behind the blindfold, the way that Gavorche looked to music to save him and music failed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he had arrived at the barricade, he didn't think he'd walk away. He didn't want to walk away. Cosette was a distant memory at that point and he could not go on without her. Whether he believed in the cause, in a stronger world—he didn't know. He believed in the men who called him 'brother' and 'citizen', the men who took him in when his own family threw him out, the men who loved him when nobody else did. Shouldn't he be with them now?</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>At the end of the world or the last thing I see,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The world was supposed to end, and a new one, full of hope and the absence of darkness, was supposed to rise. So where is it? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Where the fuck is it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius stumbles over to a chair, where he imagines Grantaire standing and bellowing insults, where he knows Enjolras had sat, retreating from a fight. where Bahorel laughed, where Jehan had written, where Combeferre had studied. He imagines their corpses. He kicks over another chair as a heaving sob overtakes him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They are never coming home, never coming home!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They never had coffins, never had burials. Their bodies were laid out in a row on the street, blood flooding between cobblestones. Marius didn't get to see them. The images in his head are likely far more disturbing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Could I? Should I?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He allows himself the morbid peace of imaging them around him—and they are, in spirit. In the place between life and death that we have already explored, his friends stand in the Cafe Musain. Blood crusts around their wounds. There is nothing they can do except watch Marius cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the things that they never, ever told me</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the smiles that are ever, ever-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He had joined so late into the camaraderie and wished he had discovered the truth about his father sooner so that he could have adjusted his ideals accordingly and found this community sooner, just to have more time with them. To have been there on the day that Bossuet was accepted into law school or the day that Musichetta finally said yes to Joly— this would have been his dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But those were events that did happen, and he shivers at the idea of what didn't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Jehan running into the cafe with a newspaper in hand, blush tracing over his cheeks, entering as a published writer for the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Grantaire, having finally graduated with a classical studies degree that would be wasted away in the words of the drunkard's speeches. And he’s happy with it, a diploma in one hand and a bottle in the other. He imagines Grantaire being happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Courfeyrac, maybe falling in love and swooning like Marius did once. Inviting someone to share in his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Combeferre studying his hieroglyphics and making some remarkable discovery, though Marius doesn’t know what it means—he only knows German, French, and English. But he supports Combeferre as the light in his eyes shines. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Gavroche, growing up, finally earning a seat at the table alongside Enjolras. Gavroche, who would always share his bread even if he was on his last loaf for a week, grows up to be a Monsiuer Leblanc figure, a Fauchelevant; that is to say, a kind and generous man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Bahorel uniting the different labor groups, spreading systemic change through the </span>
</p><p>
  <span>working man. There is no single moment of enlightenment for the work that Bahorel did, but Marius imagines it to mean something, which was all he could ask for—all any of them could ask for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Joly, solemnly drinking after saving his first life. He is celebratory until he realizes that it wouldn't always be possible. He wouldn't always be successful. Marius wants to be there for the moments of utter devastation as badly as he wants to see the joy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Bossuet, after leaving law school as he always wanted to do, picking up some noble trade. Something that didn't require luck. Maybe he becomes a translator too—or a fanmaker. There are  been so many options available to him once he stops limiting himself to a life he has no interest in leading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Feuilly, wishing his friends tearful goodbyes before he left to Poland, to study everything he ever wanted on some amazing scholarship. The trip would have been funded by his friends, his brothers. He would have come back one day. He isn’t coming back anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He imagines Enjolras, powerful as ever, looking on at his friends who had succeeded in their lives and making the world kinder to live in. The people had risen and supported their endeavors. They had done it. Enjolras doesn’t smile—not in the way that Bahorel and Joly did, but with a small upturn of his lips as he takes a sip of his drink. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But none of that would happen. It couldn't. His friends are dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ever get the feeling that you're never all alone?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Nobody taught him how to grieve—is he allowed to imagine his friends in the space around him? Is that normal? Is it okay? He isn't—okay. His fingers drum across the table top and he can feel his friends' initials engraved in the wood below the pads of his fingertips, the most notable being a capital 'R'. He thinks about it for a long moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like they never left. Like they can walk in, talking and scheming and laughing and breathing and being alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In that strange space that his friends occupied, Courfeyrac is the one to sit across from Marius, and reach out for his hand. A chill is consequently sent down Marius' spine, as he jerks his hand away. He can almost see Courfeyrac. Almost. With his black curls hanging down to cover the blood spilling down his cheek. The gunshot is in his gut, covered by his waistcoat.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I remember,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Now at the top of my lungs in my arms, they die, they die!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And he saved Courfeyrac—was hailed as a hero at the barricade for a brief moment in time. How could someone he saved, pulled back from the bayonets, still die? How was he not good enough? How was everything that Marius tried to do never good enough? Not for his father, not for his grandfather, not for Enjolras, and now, somehow, he had killed Courfeyrac.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>At the end of the world, or the last thing I see,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We are never coming home, never coming home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And from his place in death, Courfeyrac begins to cry. He doesn’t know he’s capable, but he feels an intense wave of pity and guilt crash inside him. He had, in his view, hurt Marius. He introduced the stupid, naive young Bonapartist to the revolution. Marius would have been better off not knowing any of them, not caring about the strange revolt in the Rue Dennis and reading about it absentmindedly in the newspaper. But Courfeyrac had extended his hand and Marius had taken it and now there was no hand to hold.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Could I? Should I?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius feels his presence there, having never been in the cafe without voices cheering around him. The voices are gone. There is no sound escaping their mouths, not that Marius could hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the things that you never ever told me,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm so sorry," Courfeyrac says to himself, a breeze blowing through the window in the form of words. "Mon chér, désolé. Désolé, mon ami. Désolé."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius can still see their phantom-like smiles, caught in a daunting moment of confidence. He remembered the night that Grantaire asked Enjolras if he would go to heaven. The smiles had faded in that moment. Marius can’t remember if they ever truly came back.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Never coming home, never coming home!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius has a home now—with Cosette, the ray of light in his life that ends every night and brings forward new days. Every step he takes is for her. He lives for her. But he feels as if he shouldn't have lived at all as he sits in the cafe.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Could I? Should I?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Courfeyrac hadn't hesitated on the day that they met, outside of the taxi that he jokingly called his home, to bring Marius into the family, the one thing that Marius needed the most that day. Courfeyrac had provided. And Marius repays him by surviving.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The one who wanted to die the most survives. And he hates himself, and he hates the National Guard, and he hates Javert, and once again, he hates himself for being so fucking full of that hate. He had spoken with Cosette's father on multiple occasions about hate and forgiveness. Marius assumed that the older man had a wonderful upbringing and smooth life—he spoke so plainly about goodness that he must not have any reason to truly hate someone. Marius, the same as in many instances of his life, was (as we know) wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>For all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He is not spiritual; religious, certainly (after all, church was how he connected with Monsieur Mabeuf and by extension, his father), but he does not believe in ghosts or spirits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By God, he wants to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants to believe that Courfeyrac was a breath away, but he doesn’t. He feels deeply alone in the absence of life in the Cafe Musain. He feels like he was tainting its legacy with his beating heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If I fall, if I fall down.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels like he deserved to die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I shouldn't be the one to live," he says outloud to nobody in particular, though the shadows of the past wait around the room. "It shouldn't have been me. It should be any of you. I have disgraced the legacy that you left—I went to the barricade out of selfishness that I must now live in. I have betrayed all of you."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>At the end of the world, the last thing I see.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And he swears, he swears he could feel Bossuet's hand on his shoulder. He swears he could hear Gavroche sniffle. He hears the clink of Grantiare's bottle and he feelsl Courfeyrac holding his hand back on the table. He swears that he felt them around him. He fucking—he swears he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Please believe him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius revels in the moment with them, holding on tightly to the idea that he hadn't betrayed his friends, that they stand beside him. He feels Joly fix his cane, leaning it against the table. He feels Combeferre rest a palm on his other shoulder. He feels Enjolras smile at him—something he had never seen before and would never have the chance to see. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We are never coming home, never coming home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And in a moment, he is alone again. It was all in his imagination, and he knows that- he would be stupid not to know that. But he wants to hold onto it for one more moment. Courfeyrac is gone—they are </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> gone. Marius isn’t surrounded by ghosts, he isn’t surrounded by memories, he is painfully and utterly alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Never coming home, never coming home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And no God can change that.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the things that you never ever told me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>In the moment they were there, he should have said he loved them. He should have fucking said it- why didn't he say it? Why didn't he say it when they were alive and why the fuck can he not say it now that they’re dead? They are dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. The word plays over in his mind. He never saw the bodies. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And all the smiles that are ever going to haunt me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>In every drink he ever had, every poem he ever read, every moment of his life, he would remember his friends. He would see their smiles in people walking under ladders and their smiles in people wearing red jackets and he could not ever escape this.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Never coming home, never coming home.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He cries again, not knowing how long or how loudly. There is no reason to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Could I? Should I?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt the weight of a knife in his pocket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could almost accept the world he lived in, speaking specifically of the absences of his friends and his brothers, if only it was the world they wanted. If the people had risen and Louis Phillippe was dead and the poor weren't getting poorer and the rich weren't getting richer. But that wasn't the case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which doesn’t make Marius sad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes him angry.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>All the wounds that are ever gonna scar me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls the knife out, and traces around the wooden knots of the table. He carves the first name. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Courfeyrac.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It is entirely selfish to put that name first, but he was the one that meant to most to Marius, and it’s up to Marius to secure the legacy which gives him the right to do it in any way he wants to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just below, he carves the second name. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Combeferre</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He begins to cry, salty tears falling onto the table. His pain hurts, but he knows it doesn’t hurt as much as a bullet to the brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Feuilly. Jehan. Bossuet. Joly.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He can barely see the table in front of him, his own tears clouding his vision and his mind. He relies on feeling, the grooves in the sandy wood, to guide his marks. His hand cramps, but he keeps going.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Bahorel</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Enjolras</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius knows what had happened in the last moments of Enjolras' life. He read every newspaper article on the Rue St. Denis Barricade that he could find, kept them filed away. Most of them didn't have names. He read that the leader, who was sometimes referred to as 'Apollo', as they didn't have his name, was pinned against the wall and a drunk man had collapsed at his feet after demanding to me shot and asking for permission and forgiveness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his carving, Marius reaches the “R” that Grantaire had previously marked into the table. It dawns on him, the survivor, that Grantaire deserves more than that. More than a single letter. He had died proving that he was more than that. He was an ami. Marius carves around the initial. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>GrantaiRe</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s all he could bear- he knows there are more. There is Eponine and Gavroche and Mabuef, but he can’t handle any more. He needs to go home to Cosette.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>For all the ghosts that are never gonna…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Marius weeps.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ala "most dangerous thing" this was originally much fucking darker and then i read it again and was like. absolutely not. <br/>anyway disenchanted is next pls leave comments and fuel my pain</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. DISENCHANTED</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Grantaire felt sick, and he didn't know if it was from his Apollo's disappointment or the bottles of wine that sat uncomfortably in his stomach. </p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>richefeus! richefeus! no new tws but like. we're getting angstyyyyy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <ol>
<li><b> [DISENCHANTED] </b></li>
</ol><p>
  <span>It isn’t time to weep yet for the rest of the so-called heroes or martyrs of our stories. The lights flicker on our play, and we return to the past, return to hope, and return to the Cafe Musain on the night that Grantaire stood alongside Enjolras for the first time. He did this by fighting against him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Well, I was there on the day, they sold the cause for the queen</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Which is why it is more important than ever before to preach the ideals of Republicanism," Enjolras was saying, delivering a rousing speech before sending his lieutenants on their separate ways. "We've seen what people who betray their country look like. Louis Phillippe has betrayed his country."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire looked at him with equal parts fear and admiration. Enjolras could (and Grantaire knew he would) get shot for talking like this. But Enjolras didn't care, which pulled Grantaire even closer to him, like Icarus and the sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And when the lights all went out, we watched our lives on the screen</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"And it's okay that Marius has decided that we are not worth his time at the present moment," Enjolras said, to address rumors that had been spreading before the meeting again. He remained stoic, and not personally offended in the slightest. Rich men understood rich men. "He will be able to join us when we strike if he so chooses, or will be encouraged to fight at a later date when the rest of France rises and he is in the minority. I bear no ill will against him, admittedly even with his Bonapartist ideals, and he is always welcome back to The Friends of the ABC."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire smirked and nursed his bottle, far from drunk. But then he saw, in a flash, the final chapter.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I had the ending myself, but it started with an alright scene.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Eight shots in Enjolras, one in Grantaire. He didn't smirk anymore, almost feeling the wound that would come, as if it already happened. As if every step he took was choreographed in some opera. Like he was a dancer living in a music box.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That said, with Marius absent, I have nobody to go to Richefeu's, as you all already have your assignments."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It was the roar of the crowd, that gave me heartache to sing,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire jerked his head up, as if Enjolras had said his name. "Enjolras, you're a fuckwad."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras turned back around to face him, as if he forgot the drunkard had even stumbled into the </span>
</p><p>
  <span>cafe that evening. "What did I do this time, Grantaire?" He spoke flatly, checking his pocket watch. They probably had five more minutes before they had to get going to their places.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You forgot about me. My assignment. I can go to Richefeu's."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It was a lie when they smiled, and said "You won't feel a thing."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras actually laughed, throwing his head back like a child. His golden curls shaking with every motion and Grantaire would be lying if he said it wasn't the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life, the way Enjolras' lips pulled back into a smile and his blue eyes crinkled. Grantaire would be smiling too, just in an effort to mimic his Apollo, but he was too hurt at the insinuation. Enjolras was laughing at him. Beauty, yes, but in the presence of Grantaire's pain— it was a maschocism that he hadn't yet agreed to. He would have, if he were asked, but Enjolras did not see that he was worthy of asking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You?" Enjolras said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I." Grantaire nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Grantaire, you don't know shit."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And as we ran from the cops, we laughed so hard, it would sting</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"There's lots of shit I know," Grantaire argued, to nobody's surprise. "I've been to enough of your riots and protests and ran from enough of your angry cops to preach your ideals. I can recite the laws of man, and like, I've heard of John Locke. I understand natural rights. And, I'm your secret weapon."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras narrowed his eyes. "How so?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, yeah, whoa,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know the men who play at Richefeu's. We sculpt together. We make art together. Sometimes we paint each other naked. We are bohemians, Apollo. I can teach them about principles."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you kidding?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If I'm so wrong, so wrong, so wrong.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, but the life drawings don't happen that often anymore, not since—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I meant about principles, Grantaire."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Right, right, but if you ever wanted to participate in that, we'd be more than honored to carve a statue out of a marble God. Or a private session, if you prefer." Grantaire was on thin ice and surprisingly sober.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Be serious," Enjolras said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I am wild," Grantaire replied, shaking his mane of black curls as he mocked Enjolras without a shred of dignity.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How can you listen all night long, night long, night long?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The other students started flooding out, needing to attend to their own assignments."I don't understand you, Grantaire,” Enjolras confessed, running a hand through his hair as he tried to wrap his mind around the situation. “You sit here night after night and dismiss everything I say. You don't believe in anything."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire felt a pang of hurt, and didn't fight to hide it. He spoke quietly and sincerely, the way he had never spoken to Enjolras before. He was not on display, fighting for applause, and he was not trying to tear Enjolras down with his words. He meant to be genuine."I believe in you."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Now will it matter after we're gone?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras did not say anything. Not for a long moment. He simply studied Grantaire's face for the first time. Grantaire experienced an honor in that moment that he did not understand. What was there to see in his face? Deep oceans that did not live in his eye, but in the thin skin below them, purple and majestic as the bruises that sometimes appeared on his neck and shoulders. Creases of wrinkles of laughing and sobbing and living the way Enjolras didn’t know how. Red in his eyes, even when he was sober. What did Enjolras see?</span>
</p><p><span>"Would you really do me a favor?" he asked.</span><span><br/></span> <span>Grantaire held his tongue between his teeth. "Anything you like, Enjolras. I'll polish your boots. I’ll—" </span></p><p>
  <span>"Alright. I consent to try you." He did not trust Grantaire to finish his sentence. He was not wrong in this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wearing a red jacket with the sole purpose of imitating Enjolras, Grantaire leaned up on the balls of his feet, placing a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder to steady himself. It was intimate in a way that almost scared Enjolras. “Be easy, you animal,” Grantaire whispered before fleeing, the words slipping out of his lips continuing to play in a dizzying loop in Enjolras' head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cynic arrived swiftly to converse with the sculptors. Whether or not he said anything to them was unknown, for as when Enjolras entered a few hours later, Grantaire was wholly immersed in a game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"So then I said, 'Fuck you, Apollo.' and he was so angry. You should have seen his face," Grantaire was rambling, earning bouts of guffaws and laughter from his opponents. He clearly had more than enough to drink, slurring his words without care. "He was like, sweating and bright red with his rosy lips pressed in a line- well, if you would believe it, he looked exactly like that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire gestured towards Enjolras, who had resigned to fuming in the corner and watching Grantaire betray him, the cause, and everything he believed in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Grantaire." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was all it took for Grantaire to silently leave his table, retreating alongside Enjolras. He didn't say anything. as they walked back to Enjolras's rooms. The brunet preferred when the blond was yelling, compared to this horrible, deafening silence. There was disappointment in every step. Grantaire didn't even know if he was supposed to turn around and go home or just wait to be scolded. It was sobering, but not nearly enough. He was still drunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because you never learned a goddamn thing,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras pushed through his door, unlocking it silently, but began to speak without turning around as Grantaire trailed behind him. "I don't fucking understand you. You told me you'd spread the word of our cause, and you didn't. Why didn't you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was going to— I had to get them to trust me and to like me," Grantaire insisted, stumbling inside. "So I let them buy me a couple bottles, and— trust me, I was going to."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You're just a sad song, with nothing to say.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"You were never going to. You knew that the moment you volunteered." Enjolras said, finally looking him in the eyes for the first time the entire evening— although by now it was well into the night, tiptoeing into morning. "I just don't know why you did."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>About a lifelong stay with a hospital stay</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Because I— I really was going to." Grantaire took a clumsy step towards Enjolras, who took a step back. Grantaire took the cue and took another step back— it was a tango that neither of them signed up to perform. "Have I ever lied to you before?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I suppose you haven't."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I've never done anything you've asked me to, because this was the first time you asked me to do something. And I—" he ran nervous fingers through his hair, trying not to fake sobriety and failing miserably, as he did in most facets of his life, it seemed. "I really was going to. If the people really were to rise— you might not die."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What are you talking about?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And if you think that I'm wrong this never meant nothing to you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't see how you're going to survive whatever uprising you have planned. When Lamarque dies—and he will—so will you. And I will watch." Grantaire muttered, words running together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras swallowed. "That very well may be. But that's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make for the betterment of France and—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You don't fucking get it," Grantaire retreated to a chair in Enjolras' dining room, which was inside of his kitchen space. After leaving home, this was the most affordable place in the area, and Combeferre was asleep in the other room, but was certainly awake after the bickering. After all, it was unheard of for Enjolras to bring anyone home, especially at two in the morning. "You don't fucking—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then explain."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You will die and we all will and nothing will change. I'm certain."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I think you'll live," Enjolras snarled, bile rising in his tone. "because you have no reason to die. Not for this cause. And I've accepted that. That you bring nothing to the revolution. We've had this fight before and I'm sick of it. It bores me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire felt sick, and he didn't know if it was from his Apollo's disappointment or the bottles of wine that sat uncomfortably in his stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I spent my high school career spit on and shove to agree,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span> Enjolras thought back to the first day that Grantaire had joined his society— or rather, sat in the back of the room, nursing a bottle, and criticizing his society. Grantaire was quiet until he wasn't, and then he was thunder incarnate. Courfeyrac was discussing his days in primary education and the injustices he experienced, and Enjolras was relating to those tragedies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Monsieur de Courfeyrac was at the bottom of the ladder, I'm sure."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the first thing that Grantaire had ever said in the presence of Enjolras. The first time that Enjolras heard that gruff, rumbly tone from his mouth. The first time that Enjolras had been challenged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Pardon me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I've been listening to you all evening talk about how hard life was for you, while Bossuet and Feuilly have not said anything on the matter. Why not let them have the floor?" Grantaire had remembered names and stories like he was studying for a test on the matter— like he would have to recite a great drama about the men in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Gladly," Enjolras nodded to them, still wanting to impress any newcomer in the room and not yet deciding he was a lost cause. "Bossuet? Feuilly?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though they both understood why Grantaire had chosen them by name, neither felt empowered by the drunkard. You cannot force a man to defend himself, especially against his friends. "Feuilly," Grantaire stood, walking over to the fan-maker in the straighest line he could manage. "what was your average day in primary school like?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I did not attend."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh, who could have possibly guessed?" Grantaire said, recalling an anecdote that Feuilly had mentioned previously in the evening to him, and the staunch fact that both of his parents had passed when he was younger. "But I'm sure Monsieur de Courfeyrac had an absolute horrid time with his new, stylish boots and textbooks and parlor maids."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So I could watch all my heroes sell a car on TV</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Courfeyrac sat down.  He understood how the game was to be played, and how it was not possible to bring Grantaire to their side of the revolution if they did not allow him space to rightfully critcize those in charge. He did not know that by giving Grantaire a voice for one evening, it would inspire his voice to scream for three years of incessant infighting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire could have kept going, knowing that Bossuet was homeless and jumping from open home to open arms, and comparing his life to Enjolras's, or even Jehan's. But he didn't need to keep going. He had exposed the unspoken disparity between equal men in the room. And he smiled that toothy, horrible grin at Enjolras for the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I see, and do you honestly think—" Enjolras sniffed, suspecting it wouldn't be the last time he earned that wolfish smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Enjolras, a word?" Monsieur de Courfeyrac requested, pulling Enjolras aside as Grantaire smiled to himself, satisfied at his first impression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Have you considered not fighting with the new recruit?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras nodded curtly, took the note, and moved on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That mentality didn't last more than three meetings, but Grantaire wouldn't want it any other way.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Bring out the old guillotine, we'll show them what we all mean</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But they stood in Enjolras' home, at odds and ends with each other, after Grantaire had failed to follow through on his promise. "I'd love to see what you could accomplish if you cared, what you'd be like as a radical," Enjolras said in a strange moment of uplifting thought. "You're— you're clever as hell Grantaire, and you did know those men and have an impact on them. If you can memorize French philosophers half as well as you memorize Greek myths, you could be one of the most valuable people in the Cafe Musian every week. But you don't. I would love to know what you could do if you weren't such a hateful cynic. You could tear down monarchy with your spite and your rage. Your words could chop Louis the 14th's head off."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, yeah, whoa</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The average man would be insulted by Enjolras' words— particularly 'hateful cynic'. But Grantaire had never felt so admired by the other man in his entire life and he wondered if it was an alcohol induced daydream.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If I'm so wrong, so wrong, so wrong.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Apollo, I was really going to tell them. But it wasn't for the cause. It would never—nothing I do is for the cause." Grantaire found himself saying— it was as if he was hearing the words, but not saying them. "You do understand that, right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How can you listen all night long, night long, night long?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I don't."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I sit at every meeting and I listen to every speech for a cause that I don't believe in. Tonight, I even said—"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Now will it matter, long after we're gone?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"You were drunk. You are drunk."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That's not— I wasn't— you don't want to believe in me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course, I want to believe in everyone."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because you never learned a goddamn thing.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire shook his head. "I think I should go home."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras said nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras did not tell him to leave. It's important that you know that Enjolras did not ever tell Grantaire to leave— even as he lied and he drank and he shouted, Enjolras never in his life told Grantaire to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not. Yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You're just a sad song with nothing to say,</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I wish that you stood for something, Grantaire," Enjolras said when the other had turned to leave. It was almost vulnerable, but entire worlds lived in the world 'almost'. "Am I a bad man if I have given up on you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>About a lifelong wait for a hospital stay.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grantaire smiled, but there was a note of sadness that Enjolras hadn't seen before. This wasn't his shit-eating grinning when he won an argument. This was human. "Maybe it just means that you're the same as me." He didn't answer the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And if you think that I'm wrong, this never meant nothing to you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Goodnight, Apollo," Grantaire bowed his head and retreated out of Enjolras' humble rooms, unsure where his feet would take him next, humbled at how close Enjolras had allowed him to become that night. He had entered the house of a God, but left like a fallen angel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enjolras shook his head to only himself. "Goodnight, Grantaire."</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i'm working on a Community AU rn so. next chapter might b delayed? idk we'll see!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>